


Interesting Elements

by Ansereg (Tyellas)



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ankh-Morpork, Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Bearded Dwarf Women, Dwarf Courting, F/F, Feel-good, Fluff, Pre-Femslash, Queer Themes, is Nobby Nobbs' smell a character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 21:32:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Ansereg
Summary: Cheery Littlebottom's made herself a target for the dullest Dwarves a-courting in Ankh Morpork. Until she meets another dwarf who's also curious about life's more interesting elements.





	Interesting Elements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrm/gifts).



> A gift drabble for bookwyrm. Yes, I'm a Discworld fan too. We were talking about Discworld and queer dwarves and...here you go!

At the front desk of the Watch house, Cheery Littlebottom sighed. She'd drawn the short straw for front desk duty, with inevitable results.

By now, she was used to the attention.

Cheery wasn’t sure when other dwarves’ gazes at her had tipped from businesslike fellow-dwarf assessment into glazed fascination. The evening off when she’d forged high heels for her boots? The week she’d started calling her leather kilt a leather skirt? Or the day Cheery had broken Dwarvish traditions, languages, and sartorial conventions by calling herself… _herself_?  The nice thing about the vaguely smelly Watch house (she’d thought they’d left the smell behind in the old building but between Nobby Nobbs and her own alchemy it was back) was that being _her_ self didn’t matter there. As long as she helped solve crimes, kept her part of the smell under control, and didn’t blow the place up _too_ much.

Most of the time. But today was one of those days. Another Dwarf was hovering around the Watch foyer. Cheery had a _grk’alt’az._

The phrase translated from Dwarvish as “admirer of one’s work.” Extended conversations about one’s handiwork were how dwarves broke the ice of courtship. That was some thick mountain ice, with dwarves, and their courtship was a long, elaborate process. The trickiest part of it was finding out what was under the other dwarf’s kilt. Cheery had answered that question publicly--and made herself the target of every male dwarf eager to get the process over and done with.

Cheery sighed. At least this _grk’alt’az_ was more presentable than most. They had oiled their dark beard and trimmed their nails and scrubbed the soot off their well-turned thews. It was a pity that it didn’t occur to any of them why Cheery had been drawn to heels and skirts and _she._ Feminine mysteries made her heart thump more than a dull dwarf bloke, even one with, as the saying went, a great big hammer and two bags of gold. Gold was all dwarves like that usually talked about, when there were so many more elements that were so much more interesting.

Hoping to escape, Cheery hopped down from her stand behind the front desk. No such luck. The _grk’alt’az_ honed in. “Beg your pardon. Couldn’t help noticing. Rather well-crafted boots you’ve got there. Unusual.”

This line was as greasy as the veins of the Schmaltzberg. Cheery grumbled a rote “Thank you.”

“Surely you’ve forged them yourself?”

“I’m afraid so.” Trying to bring this to an end, Cheery said, “Look, I mucked up the solder line there in the back.” She was a good home forger but nothing to write back to Uberwald about.

 The other dwarf leaned over and took a good look. “How’d you know you could stand on them?”

“It was an experiment. They worked.”

“I’d like to make something like that. For me. Don’t think I’d wear it as well as you do.”

“You want boots like mine? For you?” For once, Cheery was undone.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you want until it’s there to see…” The other dwarf actually blushed. “You could come by my forge sometime. Fine metalwork’s my specialty. Goldsmithing. Could show you how I do a fine solder line. Don’t know that I do anything special, apart from this one granular technique, might apply more to gold. With gold, well, gold…”

This, too, was a line of courting schmaltz. But if it meant what Cheery thought it did, this once, she’d be happy to glide down it. Because if they wanted the same thing on their feet that Cheery, an avowed dwarf female, had on hers, the chances were good that they were the same as Cheery under their kilt, too. Their skirt. And even if that wasn’t the case -

She pictured her _grk’alt’az_ with some ribbons in those dark beard curls, some gilding on their nails. How would those legs look with iron heels? With more than a skirt - some of the incredible fripperies she’d seen in the Guild of Seamstresses’ windows? That would add some interesting elements to their courting, whatever they had under their, uh, leather. It might not be so hard to put up with some talk about gold after all.

Cheery smiled, feeling it light her up, warm and honest. “I could come now. Just give me a moment,” Cheery said, dashing into her lab. She fluffed her beard and gave herself a few spritzes of perfume. It was going to be a lovely evening outside the Watch house, she could tell. For once, she wasn’t going to smell like the place. And if her _grk’alt’az_ liked the Quirmian perfume, that was one more interesting element to experiment with. After they talked about gold for a while. Cheery sighed and indulged in one more spritz before going back out.


End file.
